


Seven Devils

by Rhearn



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Battle Scenes, Dark and Twisty Anders, F/M, Jealousy, Masturbation, Obsession, One-Sided Relationship, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 02:25:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11499804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhearn/pseuds/Rhearn
Summary: Anders has a deeply unhealthy obsession with Hawke and is consumed by jealousy when he realises she's fallen for Fenris. When presented with an opportunity to end their budding relationship, Anders is forced to confront his darkest thoughts and his inner demons with potentially damning consequences. [Set in Act 2, before A Bitter Pill.]





	Seven Devils

**Author's Note:**

> Rating chosen for language use, explicit masturbation and dark themes.  
> \--  
> Named after the Florence + The Machine song that inspired some passages in this piece.  
> \--  
> This is my first return to writing fanfiction (and creative writing in general!) after a decade or so. Any feedback is welcome. I hope you enjoy. x

To his own ears, Anders’ breathing sounded ragged and harsh. The staff whirled in his grip, shrieking with energy and flinging ice in an arc before him. Always aware of her, Anders could sense Hawke fighting ahead. She was enclosed within the tightly packed group of bandits that had so foolishly set upon them. He knew better than to be afraid; she would call out to him if she needed healing. She always had, ever since the first day they met. Ambushed in the Chantry, Hawke had fought like a wild thing, all teeth and daggers until the templars had gotten the better of her. “Anders, help me!” she’d cried, and he’d been drawn to her then for the first time by a force he could neither fight nor understand. In their many battles since, she’d yell for his help, sometimes teasing and sometimes seriously injured. “Mage, I’m bleeding here!” “Anders, what do we pay you for?” “ _Anders!!_ ”

He remembered the day he’d fallen in love with her. 

~*  
The whole crew had gathered in the Hanged Man to discuss their pooled resources and joint investment in the Deep Roads expedition. Business meeting had rapidly deteriorated to binge drinking. Varric maintained a deceptively steady flow of ale supplied for them all. Anders was flushed with the warmth of overindulgence, his neck blotchy and his hands unsteady. Inhibitions long since fled, he found himself admiring the way Hawke’s collarbone shone in the candlelight and wondered how she tasted. He followed the narrowing neckline of her tunic, drawn to the shadows betraying a subtle bosom as she bent forward to seize another full flagon. He imagined the shape of her breasts and how they would feel in his hands. If he channelled some gentle lightning effects, would her nipples harden in pleasure, would she writhe beneath his lips and his spells?

“Got a good eyeful, pet?” Isabela murmured deviously in his ear, plopping onto the bench next to him and slinging an arm across his shoulders. Isabela’s breasts, far bigger than Hawke’s, rested heavily against his arm and in the crook of his elbow. She nestled into him and Anders summoned enough sobriety to be ashamed of himself for leering at Hawke. The object of his affection had looked over at them then, seemingly oblivious to anything going on, and slung her arm through Merrill’s. She lifted the tankard to Anders. “To friends!” she’d slurred, and promptly hiccupped, sloshing drink over the rim of her flagon. Anders laughed, delighted at the drunken blush suffusing her cheeks, and found his spirit lift at the delicate sounds of her continued hiccups, so at odds with her dangerous and forbidding reputation. She was both lovely and spirited and he was smitten.  
*~

Of course, those days were only the beginning of an increasingly insidious and one-sided love affair. His crush soon manifested into some sort of sickening illness that pervaded his existence, sinking into his dreams and plaguing his waking hours. Eventually, every move she made, every glimpse of her bared skin, every word she spoke rang against his senses, resonated down his spine and robbed him of his composure. He dreamed often of being in secluded places with her, the imagery dark and damning. Elsewise, he had light, fleeting dreams of her laughing and smiling for him, returning his feelings in kind and twining her fingers within his. The former were far more common. The urgency with which he wanted her only increased the longer he was forced to quash his feelings and watch over her from a distance. He wished he had the decency to be ashamed.

Anders shook his thoughts aside and paused to survey the tempo of the battle. He, Hawke, Varric and Fenris were on their way back from a trip to the alienage. They had been set upon in the Lowtown slums just as evening was descending on Kirkwall. They were far from victorious, but nobody was injured so far. Anders became the target of a line of archers and saw fit to return fire, his staff twirling and singing with power. A cocky laugh reached his ears over the din and he smirked. Hawke was enjoying herself. He loved this, doing this with her.

It was here, in battle, where he could allow his feelings for Hawke to bleed from his fingertips and reverberate along his staff. She would cry out, pleading, her need for him bared for all to witness. Other weapons might protect her but it was his holy hands that could knit her flesh back together and keep her wilful soul contained within her body. It was here that he could caress her with the glow of his magic, his mind tangling with her consciousness and coursing perversely through her veins, running down her skin and skating over her bones. It was only here that she ever screamed for him to come to her, to mend her and make her whole, to struggle and pant against the darkness together. Only in battle did she cry his name. And damn him, he could never get enough, could not summon enough respect for himself to leave her, to leave the lot of them and find a new cause to die for.

Anders flicked a fireball at a group of rogues advancing on Varric, and began to ruminate sourly. It wasn’t her fault. Hawke either had no idea, or she knew perfectly well but preferred not to address his heady crush – and he didn’t blame her if that were true. Their friendship was strong and he was a vital part of the team. Why risk all that for a foolish romance, especially with someone so _problematic_? He laughed bitterly to himself, killing bandits with unseeing eyes. The irony stung. She had eyes for someone else, and she seemed to ignore the danger the elf posed to himself and those around him. Anders wondered if the rest of the crew remarked on the way Hawke’s eyes lit up at the sight of him. How she clenched her pale fists when he argued with her, how she breathed erratically when he fought next to her. 

Fenris.

The name tasted foul on his lips and churned repulsively in his gut. His muscles coiled tightly in anger. Fenris. Self-righteous and cynical, the elf apparently cared for nothing other than his vendetta against the whole of the bloody Tevinter imperium. But that had not deterred Hawke. Like some awful cliché, she was drawn to the most damaged member of the group. Sharing one’s consciousness with a spirit was nothing compared to lyrium brands and a life of abuse at the hands of a magister.

Anders smashed his staff brutally at the kneecaps of an assassin who had the nerve to come into close quarters. The man fell with a cry that Anders did not hear.

Maker only knew what Hawke thought was going to happen. What sort of future did she envisage with the elf? Did she imagine a victim of such thorough abuse and humiliation could lie peacefully next to her at night? Did she think Fenris would settle with her into a life of domestic mediocrity? The blasted elf knew only how to run and beg and fight, he couldn’t possibly make her happy. He wasn’t fucking _worthy_.

“Blondie, a little help?” Varric called over to him, and Anders looked over to see a sizeable group of bandits moving to confront the dwarf again. He cursed an apology and conjured a glyph of paralysis around Varric’s feet.

Anders struggled to bring his attention back to the fight. The wretched envy clung to him like oil. It would not be so bad if like him, Fenris’ desire was unspoken and unrequited. Unfortunately, he had spent the last three years witnessing their bond develop from something premature and innocent to unmistakable desire. Fenris had doubled his efforts in battle and seemed to appear far more frequently when Hawke was threatened; he insisted on sitting next to her at their group dinners. Their awkward body language and halting conversations had graduated to an easy familiarity full of pregnant pauses, lidded eyes and probing stares when they thought the other hadn’t noticed. Anders certainly noticed, and Justice seethed within him.

Anders knew enough of Hawke to be certain she hadn’t bedded the elf, but he would wager she retired to her bed after their reading lessons picturing lyrium tattoos and lithe limbs. Worse, Anders agonised over the knowledge that Fenris must imagine rutting into her, must get off on the thought of disgracing her with his filthy hands. It made Anders sick.

One night recently, the crew met again at the Hanged Man, now their usual haunt. 

~*  
It was late, and Hawke stood up from their table to make her goodbyes. Fenris offered to walk her back to her estate in Hightown. It was on his way home, he explained needlessly to the group. The pair made their way over to a table by the door to collect their weapons and the heavier bits of armour that they’d all shed to relax. Unsteady on her feet, Hawke staggered into the elf and the two nearly butted heads. They righted themselves awkwardly and were suddenly face-to-face and far too close. The silent moment stretched for a heartbeat too long as they gazed into each other’s eyes, almost panicked with what they saw there. Anders knew this because he could not take his eyes off Hawke, his ochre gaze glitteringly darkly from the corner of the room. He watched her visibly try to reconcile attraction, intoxication and good judgement. Her chest rose and fell with laboured breathing, and Anders could just make out the straining of her leather tunic. He longed to rip it from her. A light tinkle of nervous laughter escaped her lips and they left while conversing in low tones, the sounds fading out the doorway. Anders suppressed a sudden impulse to run after them and tear the life from Fenris’ limp and bloodied body.

That night, Anders had stumbled alone back to Darktown. He lay dizzily and heartsick to sleep in his pallet in the back corner of the clinic. He was shielded from any overnight patients and helpers by the canvas strung from the roof as a partition. Closing his eyes, he tried in vain to stop the room from spinning and fought to swallow the bitter jealousy bubbling within. Instead, he fixated on the image of Hawke that was burned into the back of his eyelids. He recalled how her breasts had surged with each breath, struggling to be free from the bindings of her tunic; the way her eyes had widened in surprise at Fenris’ proximity. Her lips had parted deliciously, words dying on her tied tongue. Freed of his breeches and buried in a mound of blankets, Anders stroked himself at the thought of those lips parting for his, her tongue warm and wet against his as he kissed her. 

His imagination ran wild with the painstaking action of freeing her of her leather, tugging at the laces one by one until her luscious tits bounced free. In a frantic bid for release, Anders suddenly could not focus on one thing, and imagined his mouth suckling at her plump nipple, lapping at her clit and her slick opening, trailing kisses along her freckled ribs and sucking her earlobe. He turned over in a drunken, lusty haze as silently as he could manage, and found himself rolling his hips into the mound of blankets on the pallet, pretending her body was beneath him. The drink pumped through his veins in time to his thrusts, filling his head with fireworks and numbing his body except for his inflamed cock. He wondered if such was how it would feel to be buried in Hawke to the hilt. Maker, he’d do anything to have her, not once, but again and again until she truly belonged to him. The thought of planting his seed deep within her scalding core was too much, and Anders groaned into his pallet, spoiling the cheap furs bunched under his hips. He jerked without rhythm into the folds until he was spent and thought himself the filthiest stain in Darktown.  
*~ 

Anders looked up and was dismayed to see more bandits rappelling from surrounding rooftops. At least a dozen enemies were now squaring off against them, including two mages freshly introduced to the fight. It was a clever tactic. Hawke’s companions were outnumbered three to one and they were increasingly tired from the bodies they had already dropped. They simply didn’t have enough resources left to stand against such a force for long. The thought came to Anders suddenly and awfully in the brief silence as he assessed the battlefield. Varric had backed up many yards to the right and into an alley where he could pick off enemies without being flanked; Fenris and Hawke were in the thick of it ahead of him.

Nobody would know.

They were a single breath away from the calm breaking. A swarm of warriors and assassins would descend on them again; the mages would unleash a torrent of spells and hexes. It would be perceived as an injury sustained in battle and Anders, exhausted and depleted of lyrium, would be unable to save him.

He could kill Fenris and have Hawke to himself.

The twisted notion was tinged with hysteria and desperation. Anders possessed enough self-awareness to recognise that he coveted Hawke like some sort of carnal prize, but he couldn’t stop. The sight of Fenris standing by her side set Anders’ blood boiling and he stood there knowing he had a chance to scratch a tortured itch.

As if in slow motion, the battle begun anew. Hawke resumed her steady dance with sure footwork and quick knives; Varric’s arrows whistled through the air; Fenris hefted his greatsword and began to lunge and sweep with the blade. Anders was motionless, indecision wracking his body. His fingers tightened around his staff, knuckles gone white. His breath shuddered in his lungs. He could feel Justice clawing to the forefront of his mind, wanting to take over and dispense savage vengeance on the elf who had so wronged them both, cheating them from Hawke’s heart and bed.

Anders was jolted into action by the sight of an assassin who made a sudden lunge for Hawke across the field. Neither she nor Fenris had noticed and she was moments away from having a knife in her spine. Anders was forced to focus his attention on keeping a flurry of ice bolts neat and taught, aimed carefully so as to avoid hitting Hawke. Anders put all murderous thoughts from his mind as he struggled to keep Hawke’s rear clear of enemies. After a time, he realised with a shock that they had collectively managed to take down most of the enemies, including one of the mages. Varric was doing them proud, Bianca singing voraciously in his deft hands.

It was nearing the end of their deadly dance when Anders heard the sickening and unmistakable sound of metal punching into flesh. In and of itself, the sound would not be out of place in their current predicament, save for the sudden flare of raw lyrium that lit up the twilight… and the tormented, blood-curdling scream that ripped from Hawke’s lovely throat. The blood ran cold in Anders’ veins and his heart dropped dizzyingly with panic. His legs carried him jerkily towards Hawke, almost moving of their own accord. Varric brought down the offending warrior and kept the remaining mage busy. Anders ended her life with a blast of cold as he passed – an almost comical end to a body that wielded such power, but he paid the woman no heed as she fell. It was over, they had won. It didn’t matter.

Hawke was on the ground with Fenris. Anders skidded and fell to his knees before her, prayers to the Maker already forming on his trembling lips. He ignored the elf leaning against her; he had eyes only for Hawke, and so he misread the signs in front him.

“Anders!” Hawke sobbed, beseeching with her wild eyes. Tears were spilling down her rosy cheeks, cascading down her chin to stain darkly on the front of her jerkin. She wasn’t one to cry. Even when she’d suffered terrible injuries, she’d grit her teeth and insist she couldn’t feel it. Never had he seen her so unhinged. In the second that it took Anders to comprehend the situation, Hawke finished fumbling at her belt and unstoppered an injury kit with trembling fingers. She pressed the potion to Fenris’ lips.

The bile rose suddenly in Anders’ throat, mixing bitterly with the relief that washed over him. Hawke was fine, but Fenris was gasping wetly and clutching at his chest. Her tears were for him.

Blood had already flooded from between his spindly fingers to coat his armour and rush to the ground. His life was seeping from him. Varric clattered down to the ground next to them.  
“Shit. Well? Can you help him, Blondie?” the dwarf lilted, his humour spoiled by worry.  
“Anders, please, do you need lyrium? I brought some as a spare, here, please, I can’t get the cork out, Fenris, love, Fenris, save your energy, I can’t, Varric can you get this? Please, I can’t, I _can’t_ ,” Hawke choked, her hands shaking violently as she tried to unstopper another vial.

 _I can’t lose him_ , Anders thought, finishing the sentence for her. His mind reeled in horror. She loved Fenris. She’d given her heart to the manic dog wheezing and dying in her arms, the tormented and broken knife-ear, scarred in both body and mind by his human oppressors.   
She was in love with him. She’d never uttered a word or revealed such a depth of feeling in front of any of them, but the situation wrenched candour from her. Nothing mattered to her except that he lived.

Anders’ lie died on his lips along with his malicious intent. He covered her trembling hands with his, halting her scrabbling. Her eyes found his and locked with him, trying to anchor herself in his calm demeanour.  
“I have enough,” he replied softly and tore his gaze free of hers. He looked down, trying to hide his revulsion. He watched Fenris cough around the blood bubbling from his mouth. The elf wiped weakly at his lips with the back of his free hand.  
“Well, mage?” he intoned quietly, raspily, echoing Varric’s question. He looked Anders dead in the eye.

With a wave of disarming clarity, Anders understood: Fenris knew. He knew of Anders’ jealousy, of his desire and this test of his will. He wanted to let the elf die, and Fenris knew it. The serene challenge in Fenris’ eyes disabled the mage and Justice hovered, snarling and urging Anders to let go. He longed to finish the job and dash the elf’s brains out on the stone, crushing the life from those imperturbable eyes.

Anders cleared his throat and wrestled the monster in him. “His lung is punctured,” he spoke into the sinister silence, his voice sounding disembodied even to himself. Varric’s eyebrows were drawn low, frowning at him, sensing something was awry.

Anders perceived Hawke and Fenris then as if at a great distance, the scene unfolding as if in one of Varric’s hideous romantic tragedies. Fenris was sprawled across Hawke’s lap, having summoned enough energy to brush at her cheek with his hand. The lyrium brands seemed abnormally bright as they contrasted with his dark skin and her rosy cheek, flushed with emotion. His expression, now focussed on her, was strangely soft. It was an odd sight to behold, one that Anders knew was normally reserved for Hawke in private moments. The love was etched clearly in the shape of his mouth, the earnest gaze of his eyes, the gentle brush he left against her jaw with his fingertips. Anders felt himself suddenly an awkward intruder on their lives. They seemed irrevocably bound to one other, no longer separate entities. He would never have a chance to win Hawke, if indeed he had ever had one.

The life bleeding into the stone was no longer Fenris’ alone. 

Hawke trembled first with fear, and then with fury.  
“Anders, fucking _do_ something!"  
He acquiesced, head bowed. The brilliant glow of healing emanated from his hands and he sunk into Fenris’ flesh his most heartfelt emotions. He fed the elf his love for Hawke and his obsession. He emptied his mind of his manic desire for her round hips and her enticing laugh, let go of his nights aching to kiss her mouth. He fed all of his devotion into the organ, muscle and skin that was punctured and torn. He pumped new blood into the pallid flesh beneath his hands, fuelling it with the days he had spent defending Hawke and healing her, nights he had spent playing cards and drinking with her, years of sharing knowledge and making memories with her. He left it all and sealed it there beneath skin knitted neatly closed, his love extinguished in his finest work, and as he finished, Anders felt as if a part of him had died.

It was only he and Justice that remained. It was a bitter freedom.

A relieved laugh shook him from his concentration to see Hawke bent over Fenris, crying in her happiness as the elf was visibly recovered. She kissed his mouth, blood and dirt mingling on their lips. Varric sat back on his haunches and wiped a shaky hand over his brow.

“Anders, where are you going?” Hawke called, any real concern for him drowned out by the nervous relief carrying in her voice.

Anders realised he had stood and begun to walk away. Her voice skittered off his hearing, the fires of his desire banked and his love now deadened ashes. He would not abandon her, but it was no longer for her sake. He and Justice had work to do. A kernel of his old life smouldered as he considered what he was capable of, freed now of his conscience and his love. He would show Fenris that mages were to be feared in all of Thedas. He would show them all.

 


End file.
